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Island Hopping: Historic bungalow a labor of love on Tybee Island

Cindy Kelley and her husband, Ken Zapp, bought and restored this historic home on the Back River. It was constructed about 1926 as the spec home for the Venetian Terrace subdivision.

Special to Savannah Morning NewsOriginal French doors open onto the side porch.

Special to Savannah Morning NewsThe master bedroom has a breezy island feel.

Cindy Kelley and her husband, Ken Zapp, were looking to buy a “family beach house” on Tybee last year when they spotted a forlorn-looking, “falling apart” bungalow on the Back River side of the island.

The house at 802 14th St. wasn’t exactly what they were seeking because it isn’t on the marsh, but, said Cindy, “I saw it and fell in love with it.

“We were on our way to A-J’s (restaurant) for sandwiches and saw this house that had broken windows and was abandoned,” she said. “It was for sale, but clearly housing critters. It was painted a dreadful pink.

“She was very sad,“ said Cindy, referring to the bungalow. “But I said, ‘How beautiful.’ It wasn’t what we were looking for, but I knew someone was going to tear it down, and I couldn’t stand it. We lost our minds and bought it.”

The three-bedroom, two-bath structure turned out to be the Weil-Atkinson House, a building with considerable historic significance because it was constructed about 1926 as the spec home for the Venetian Terrace subdivision.

The subdivision failed to develop because of the Great Depression, according to Cullen Chambers, executive director of the Tybee Island Historical Association.

The Weil-Atkinson House, said Chambers, was “the first and only structure built as part of the subdivision, which makes this particular example so historically important to Tybee Island.”

For their work, he said, Ken and Cindy will be presented with the Historical Society’s highest award — the Preservationist of the Year award — at the organization’s annual meeting Nov. 15.

Chambers also noted that local historic preservation consultant Bob Ciucevich is working to have the house included on the National Register of Historic Places.

Ken and Cindy, who have been residents of downtown Savannah for the past several years, sought a historic designation for the bungalow because, she said, “We wanted people to know it was a historic home,” and because having such status exempted them from regulations that would have required elevating the structure.

“That enabled us to put money into it and save it without putting it up on stilts, which would look ridiculous,” Cindy said.

It also meant they “had to keep everything historically accurate,” she said of the renovation project.

Doing so meant retaining the footprint of the house and opening up the side porch, which had been enclosed with jalousie windows during the 1950s.

They kept and re-used all the millwork, windows and doors — including French doors for each bedroom that open onto the side porch — and had the original sink and tub of the main bathroom resurfaced.

The interior had been built using an early type of drywall, the seams of which were covered with thin strips of wood called “battens.”

“The drywall had to be replaced, but we used the original battens throughout the house,” said Cindy, who moved to Savannah from Minneapolis two years ago and works as the director of the MBA program at Savannah State University and as executive director of the college’s Business Foundation.

Cindy and Ken, who’s an economist and a retired college professor, bought the house last November, and the renovation work was started in earnest in January, with contractor Mike Schulz and his MCS Contracting company of Savannah doing the job.

Cindy handled the design end of things, and she wound up furnishing the bungalow almost entirely with items she purchased from Bull Street Auctions.

“I went to auctions twice a month for six months,” she said, describing the décor of the house as “fairly eclectic, in an historic antique style.”

Under her direction, the exterior of the house went from being stomach-churning pink to a combination of green and blue with white trim and rust-colored accents. The bathrooms are done in “Grannie Smith apple green,” with the rest of the interior wearing “sunny yellow” paint with white trim, Cindy said.

The husband-and-wife team bought the house for $145,000 and put about $120,000 into renovating it. It’s currently being utilized as a vacation rental, with Mermaid Cottages of Tybee as manager of the property, and there are plans to sell it sometime in the future.

The renovation was finished in August, and Cindy and Ken held an open house on Oct. 4.

According to Cindy, they invited “everybody who had worked on the house, the Mermaid Cottages folks, our neighbors” and “all the folks” who, during the initial phase of the renovation, had walked by with sour looks indicating their skepticism about the work.

“Over time,” Cindy said, those looks “changed to smiles.”

Although the Weil-Atkinson House fell a tad short of the couple’s requirements for a family beach house, Ken and Cindy eventually found a 1970s-era home on the marsh on 6th Street that fits the bill. It’s in the first of three stages of being revamped, she said.

And, while she isn’t planning on any more restorations, Cindy said she wanted “people to know it is possible and worthwhile to renovate historic properties.”

“They link us to our past,” she said, “and, once they’re gone, it’s simply not affordable to replicate them with a new build.”